Data analysis: Google's AI overviews cause up to 25 percent drop in traffic

Do Google's AI summaries cause a decline in visitors to other websites because Google answers user questions sufficiently with its AI-generated summaries? Or do the AI summaries even lead to higher-value clicks, but not to a drop in traffic – as Google never tires of claiming? A recent study by Digital Content Next (DCN), a service provider and lobbying association for large, respected US publishers, seems to confirm the publishers' fears.

DCN analyzed the traffic from Google search queries of 19 of its members for the months of May to June. Over the course of just eight weeks (May and June), traffic fell by an average of 10 percent. Twelve of the companies surveyed were news brands, seven were non-news brands.

According to Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, these losses are a direct result of Google "AI Overviews". In his opinion, the latest data disproves Google's vague claims about "quality clicks", he added. He demands fair license conditions from Google for publishers' content. He is demanding that the market supervisory authorities treat the AI overviews as part of Google's search monopoly.

EU competition authority involved

The conflict between publishers and Google over the negative impact of AI summaries has long since reached the regulatory level. An "Independent Publishers Alliance" has filed a complaint with the EU competition authority. The allegation is that Google is abusing its dominant market position to place its own AI summaries at the top of the search results and disadvantage the original content providers. The publishers are calling for urgent measures to avert "irreparable damage".

(jo)